Mobile Website Design: Best Practices and Pitfalls
1st December, 2021
By Elliot McHugh
Designing a mobile-friendly website can be a challenge for many businesses. With so many different screens to design for, it’s hard to know where to start. But don’t worry!
We’ve put together this helpful guide to help you navigate the pitfalls and best practices of designing your next mobile website. Follow these tips and find out how to create a website that not only looks good on screens of all sizes, but also provides an optimal experience for your visitors.
Your website design goals
Your website design goals will help determine the best course of action for you. Think about what you want your mobile site to accomplish and who will be visiting it. Is it a site where people can find recipes for a cake? is it an eCommerce site? Different sites will need different layouts on mobile devices.
Generally, a mobile-friendly website is also going to have a very different design than a desktop-focused one. For example, if you’re trying to market your restaurant on a mobile site, you’ll need to highlight the menu and give customers directions if they’re looking for their nearest location.
Here are some things to consider when aligning your website design goals:
-A company’s goal could be increasing revenue through online sales
-A service may want potential customers to find information about their offerings and contact them
-An individual may only need their friends and family members to find out more about their personal life
Designing a mobile-friendly website
Designing a mobile-friendly site is essential for any business that wants to reach their audience wherever they are—and believe it or not, this includes businesses that only have desktop traffic. In fact, more than half of web browsing is now done from mobile devices.
You may be wondering what you need to do to make your site easier to navigate on smaller screens. Luckily, designing a mobile-friendly website isn’t impossible! With the right techniques and knowledge, you can design a website that’s optimized for anyone using a smartphone or tablet. If you’re looking for tips, read our web design 101 blog.
Tools like Google Analytics can help you understand how many of your visitors come from mobile devices and how they behave while there. You can use these insights to see where your page load times might be slowing down and start working on improving those. If you are using a tool like Elementor, it can help to make elements on the page optimised for tablets. The drag and drop functionality makes it extremely easy to use! And no coding skills are required!
Responsive Web Design
A responsive website is designed to re-arrange the layout of the page on different screen sizes. This means that your mobile site will have the same look and feel as your desktop site, which will make for a more seamless experience for visitors.
Responsive web design is favored by most designers because it’s easier to maintain than designing separate sites for each platform. It’s also cheaper to have one designer update multiple pages rather than hiring multiple designers for various platforms.
Designing a responsive website has many benefits, but it’s not always easy to find a template that fits your needs. Here are some things you should think about when choosing a responsive template:
Mobile Website Content Design
One of the most important aspects of mobile website design is content. Mobile sites typically have a smaller screen size than desktop sites, so content needs to be optimized for your mobile audience.
Typically, mobile screens are approximately 320 pixels wide for easy viewing. This means you’ll want to limit your text to around 300-500 characters total (including spaces). The general rule of thumb is that 10 words per line is ideal.
Another consideration is how much white space will be on your page. Too much white space can make it hard for visitors to read (and more time-consuming), so limiting the amount of whitespace will help with readability.
Mobile UX and Usability
Your website is likely the first place your customers visit, and if they can’t navigate it, they’re going to leave. The most important factor in a good mobile experience is great usability and ease of use, particularly with the nav menu.
It’s never too early to start considering how your site will work on mobile devices. That means getting feedback from users as you design and testing it out on different screen sizes as soon as possible.
Remember:
– Content should be easy to read and clickable on any device
– Menu navigation should be simple and easy to use
– Extra features like chatbots or customer service should be available on mobile
– Images and videos should load quickly and be formatted optimally for each device
– Updating your content often will help you stay relevant to visitors
– Provide alternatives for those who don’t have a data plan or unlimited internet access
Mobile and SEO
As of 2018, mobile searches account for over 55% of Google’s total search volume. This means that those searching on smartphones and tablets now make up the majority of searchers.
This is a drastically different landscape than what we saw just five years ago, when mobile devices accounted for less than 10%.
Website mobile optimisation is critical to success in today’s digital world. And with the rise of mobile-friendly websites, there has never been a better time to focus on this aspect of your website design strategy.
Conclusion
This article has given you a deep dive into designing a mobile website. Don’t forget the importance of incorporating the latest technologies and trends in your design and UX strategy to ensure that your mobile website is up-to-date with the latest standards.
The main takeaway from this article is to make sure the content length is optimised, as well as other core elements visible on the page. A mobile site needs to be designed with attention to detail, like animations, and imagery that loads quickly.
We hope these tips will help you design a website that’s tailored for your customers and provides them with an optimal experience. Please check out our other blogs and share this on social media if you found it useful!
